Sunday, March 13, 2016

Playing Cards

We
were playing cards and Paolo was winning when suddenly he looked up: “Hey, Katy,
I owe you money,” he said.

“No
you don’t,” I said, in Spanish, slapping a double seven and raking in the stack
of cards. “What are you talking about?”

“Mom
told me that the United States lent Honduras a whole lot of money and we never
paid it back. So now every kid that’s born owes you lots and lots of money,” He
laid another card. “Your turn!”

I
couldn’t figure out how I wanted to respond. “You don’t have to worry about
that,” I stammered, “You don’t owe me anything.”

I
tried again, “A lot of that debt was cancelled and really a lot of the reason
why Honduras is poor is the United States’ fault, so…” My Spanish isn’t good
enough for complexities and nuances. Also I was forgetting that he was ten
years old.

“I’ve only got eight pesos, though,” Paolo said chipperly,
“So it will take a long time.”